Big data: about assumptions and myths
Big data and its proponents make big promises about how these data will improve people’s lives in various ways – personalised medicine, safe and smart cities, targeted marketing, better science, and so on. Such promises are underpinned by a number of assumptions about the nature of big data, such as that data are given and speak for themselves.
However, focusing on big data in research, Professor Sally Wyatt argues that these assumptions are myths. Nonetheless, they can have powerful consequences for research policy and practice. During her lecture, she will go into depth about this (lecture in English).
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Regent’s University LondonAbout the speaker
Sally Wyatt is professor of Digital Cultures at Maastricht University and director of the new bachelor’s programme Digital Society, launched in September 2019. Professor Wyatt is also national coordinator of the Digital Society research programme, organised by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands. She has worked in the UK and the Netherlands, and has held visiting teaching positions and research fellowships in Canada and various European countries. Her book ‘CyberGenetics: Health Genetics and New Media’ (2016, Routledge, co-authored with Anna Harris and Susan Kelly) was awarded the 2017 Foundation for the Sociology of Health & Illness Book Prize.
This lecture is part of traditional series of lectures for alumni: the UM Star Lectures. The other 13 lectures are organized in 13 different cities and 5 countries on the same day, at the same time. This event is organised to reach out to and inspire alumni, share academic insights, experiences and memories, and to create an interconnected UM Alumni Community.
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